The role of protest

By Kalpana Sharma

THE PRAGUE protests against World Bank and IMF policies have
drawn a mixed response. Predictably, the protesters deem the
event, when thousands of people representing a range of interests
marched on the streets of Prague, a ``success''. They argue that
such demonstrations put pressure on the Bank and the IMF as well
as the richer nations to address issues of poverty and
indebtedness. On the other side, there are those who argue that
such protests are pointless - The Economist describes the
protesters as ``a mere rabble of exuberant irrationalists on the
streets'' - and that they do nothing for the cause of the poor
for whom both the protesters and the Bank express concern.

Regardless of the merits or demerits of the latest spate of anti-
capitalist and anti-globalisation protests that have gathered
steam across the world, the role of protest in changing national
and international policy cannot and should not be overlooked. In
the absence of such democratic resistance, many more anti-poor,
environmentally-damaging policies would have gone through without
questioning. Perhaps the most outstanding example of the result
of such resistance is evident from our own experience in India.
It is now accepted that the agitations against the Sardar Sarovar
Project (SSP) on the Narmada highlighted the enormous social and
environmental costs of large projects that had been left
unaddressed. Although the dam continues to be built, albeit
slower than its proponents would like, there are few who will
deny that the environmental and social aspects that were
belatedly integrated into the project only happened because of
the resistance on the ground.

It is also now a well-accepted fact that the World Bank, which
had invested in the SSP and in many other similar large dams
worldwide, had to rethink its involvement in such projects. It
revised its resettlement and rehabilitation (R & R) policy
drastically after the experience with the SSP and has now made R
& R a precondition for all the projects in which it is involved.
The World Bank's second look at its investment in large dams also
led to the formation of the World Commission on Dams (WCD)
jointly with the World Conservation Union two years ago. This is
an attempt to bring in all the stakeholders involved in dam
building - investors, engineers, environmentalists,
representatives of affected communities, and academics. The
Commission has already done some painstaking work in tackling
what appears an impossible task - to arrive at a set of
guidelines that could assist Governments and funders as they
decide whether to construct large dams. On November 16, the final
report of the commission will be released in London.

But in the meantime, individual reports are already being made
public although they will not indicate the final conclusion of
the Commission. For us, the India report is of particular
interest against the background of the controversy over the SSP
and lately the Maheshwar Hydel Project. The India country report
is extensive, looking at many different aspects of large dams
built in this country since Independence. It has individual
chapters such as an historical review by Mr. R. Rangachari, a
chapter on the framework of law, policies, institutions and
procedures by Mr. Ramaswamy R. Iyer, and a long section on the
environmental and social impact of large dams, the Indian
experience, by Mr. Shekhar Singh and others.

Despite the divergent points of view represented by the
individuals who have worked on this report, some of the agreed
conclusions authored jointly by Mr. Rangachari, Mr. Nirmal
Sengupta (who also has a chapter in the report), Mr. Iyer, Mr.
Pranab Banerji and Mr. Shekhar Singh are significant, especially
on the issue of displacement. Looking at the social impacts of
large dams, the authors conclude that although there are
beneficial and adverse impacts, the costs of the latter have not
been reflected in the cost-benefit ratio of projects. At most,
the financial costs of resettling the displaced are factored into
the financial analysis of a dam. And this, too, only after 1978.
There is no data to assess the fate of those displaced by the
2500 large dams built before this date.

Even after rehabilitation was accepted as a necessary cost, there
have been problems with implementation. ``In many projects, there
are complaints that many of the promised benefits did not
materialise. Where land was given, it was reportedly often of
poor quality. The promised infrastructure, people complain, is
missing or of poor quality and even basic necessities like water,
shelter and economic survival are not always provided for. It is
difficult, from whatever perspective one looks, to find many
success stories,'' state the authors. The report also concludes
that in addition to the lack of transparency and the corruption
that hamper the rehabilitation process, the distribution of
benefits from such projects has exacerbated social inequities
with a disproportionately large number of those who pay the costs
being members of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.

Despite the controversies generated by the displacement caused by
large dams such as the SSP, the report holds that there has not
been any effort to lay down guidelines that would correct some of
these inequities or to accommodate social costs while deciding on
the viability of large dams. ``It has not even resulted in the
acknowledgement of the fact that gross injustice has been done to
those who have had to bear the costs of large dams in India,''
states the report. The authors conclude that ``There is a need to
do all this and to follow it up, even at this late stage, by a
sincere attempt to rehabilitate the millions of `development
refugees' created by large dams. And it is time to consider
stipulating that, until this is done, or at least well begun, no
further displacement would be allowed.''

The report also contains important sections on the legal
framework and points out, for instance, that the Land
Acquisitions Act is outdated and needs to undergo major changes.
It also stresses the need to incorporate greater transparency and
processes of consultation with the affected communities. On the
environmental impact of dams, the report reminds us that until
1978, no formal environmental clearance was required for dams. By
then, of the over 4,000 large dams in India, 2,500 had already
been built. Although the dams built since then have had to go
through environmental clearance, their adverse impact on the
environment had not been negligent. A major factor for this is
that the guidelines for conducting environmental impact
assessments (EIA) of river valley projects were formulated in
1978, and despite being ``sketchy'', have not been amended.
Furthermore, construction of dams often begins even before the
clearance has been obtained. By the time the EIA is ready, the
project is a fait accompli ``because the Government does not have
the political will to abandon a project on which considerable
costs have already been incurred''.

Worse still, the EIAs are hastily done and often by
``consultants'' who are hired and supervised by the project
authorities! This clearly makes a mockery of the concept of an
independent EIA that would actually determine the shape and the
future of a large dam. The final nail in the coffin of
environmental assessment is the fact that there is no system to
monitor whether the conditions laid down for the clearance are
actually being implemented nor a system of withdrawing clearance
if they are not.

All this sounds familiar. But in the past, such statements came
from the anti-dam lobby. The fact that experts in the economic,
legal, social and environmental aspects of large dams have come
to the same conclusion is, indeed, noteworthy. In fact, it brings
us back to the Prague protests. That whatever the nature of
democratic protests, the substance of the objections that people
raise has to be heeded by those who make policy within nations
and internationally.